The Great Recession has deepened the nation’s already profound divisions. Note for a lecture, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United"

From: Harold Meyerson, "Eric Cantor’s loss is likely to widen the immigration debate," Washington Post:

The Great Recession has deepened the nation’s already profound divisions. Fed a steady diet of bile and bilge from right-wing media, many Republicans blame immigrants and minorities for much of our economic ills, and see in the nation’s growing diversity the loss of the “traditional” (that is, white Christian) American republic to a multiracial democracy. For their part, the ever more multiracial Democrats, particularly in cities where polyglot working-class coalitions have come to power, seek to combat growing inequality by raising workers’ pay and doing what they can to stop deportations of undocumented residents. What all this means is that the policy differences between red states and blue will grow relentlessly wider. And that the federal government, unless it somehow comes under one-party control, will be able to do relentlessly less and less.